About Tax Research

Conducting legal research in tax law can be highly complex and technical. Moreover, the law changes frequently. The Internal Revenue Code is regularly amended several times each year, and the Treasury Department issues many new, proposed, temporary, and amended regulations. In addition, the IRS publishes several types of regulatory and administrative documents. Researchers must be aware of the types of documents, how they can be located and updated, and their level of authority.

In order to guide the researcher through the complex and ever-changing thicket of tax law, there are several specialized tools and finding aids available.

The researcher should also note that tax law has specialized Bluebook citation rules for administrative materials and court cases (see Bluebook (19th ed.) pp. 221--223.)

This research guide introduces the specialized materials for tax research and recommended research sources.